Three top scientists are warning the Government that it is too soon to lift the COVID-19 lockdown as the virus is still spreading at speed.
From Monday, Brits will be allowed to meet each other in groups of up to six while maintaining social distancing based on the two-metre rule.
Outdoor markets and car showrooms can also reopen – but the majority of shops will remain closed until mid-June.
Reception, Year One and Year Six pupils will be allowed back in class from Monday, although some councils are still refusing to open schools just yet.
But three members Britain's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) - which provides scientific advice for UK cross-government decisions in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR) - have warned these measures are being introduced too early.
The warning came as crowds flouted lockdown rules by flocking to parks, beaches and riversides as the number of official deaths reached 38,161 in all settings, including hospitals and care homes yesterday.
However, the UK's true Covid-19 death toll is more than 47,300 based on death certificates from each UK nation and according to a survey by the Office of National Statistics, there are an estimated 54,000 new COVID-19 infections per week in England.
The government has said it hopes that a "test and trace" regime, where contacts of known cases are asked to self-isolate, will contain the virus and help the country start to reopen.
But Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust and a member of Britain's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said that "COVID-19 is spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England."
"TTI (test, trace, isolate) has to be in place, fully working, capable dealing any surge immediately, locally responsive, rapid results & infection rates have to be lower. And trusted," he said on Twitter.
John Edmunds, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a member of SAGE, said on Friday that "we are taking some risk here" with an "untested" test and trace system describing it as a political decision.
"The government here in Westminster clearly made a decision that this is the sort of level of incidence that they're willing to tolerate, the level of incidence here in the UK is significantly higher than similar countries around Europe," he told the BBC.
"But we've obviously decided that we can tolerate that level of incidence, or the government has."
Professor Peter Horby, chairman of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said
Britain could not afford to lose control of the virus.
"We really can't go back to a situation where we've got the numbers of cases and deaths we've had in the past," he told BBC Radio, adding that a test, trace and isolate system needed to be
in place.
"As we know, it's not yet fully operational so that is where the risk lies," he said.
